Tinted Windows
by pm153
Summary: Based on The Outsider. 'I remember as a kid if I saw a limousine driving, I always tried to see through the tinted window...'


Tinted Windows

_General-K+_

_Summary: Based on The Outsider. "I remember as a kid if I saw a limousine driving, I always tried to see through the tinted window..."_

--

**July, 1977**

It was hot. No, scratch that, it was _boiling._ Sweltering waves of air seemed to be washing up from nowhere at any given moment, creating a temporary oven-like effect. The humid sticky breeze drifted in through the open window, making everything in its surroundings feel even stuffier than usual. Thick, heavy moisture hung in the balance, creating a truly unbreathable atmosphere when coupled with the calidity of the day. Dewy and sticky tension covered every inch, providing no relief from the dreadful and unbearable heat.

Julie Portman sighed, bringing her glass of lemonade up to her lips and taking a gulp. The liquid did little to quench her thirst or cool her down. The plastic fan she was holding did not seem to be much help either, all it was doing was blowing hot air into her face and making her more uncomfortable than she already was.

Figures, the cheap air conditioner her father had picked up at a garage sale had to bust out in the dead of the sweltering California summer.

The sound of her parents' muffled voices from behind the bedroom door became louder, and she got up to fiddle with the controls on the television, turning up the volume, before returning to her cross-legged position on the ripped green sofa.

She closed her blue eyes, trying to ignore the overwhelming hotness for the time being and focus on the animated figures dancing on the screen before her. A slight smile twitched across her lips as she saw the poor girl frantically trying to dress herself up for the ball. Cinderella had always been one of her favorite movies...

"Julieeee..."

A whiny voice interrupted her momentary contentment. Julie groaned, turning her head to the pigtailed redhead sitting on the floor a few feet away from her.

"What, Cindy?" she asked, purposely trying to make the annoyance in her voice evident.

The six year old wrinkled her nose in discomfort and stared back at her sister. "I'm hot."

"Then take a bath," Julie snapped.

She huffed angrily, turning her attention back to where the once-house servant had transformed into a beautiful princess. She sighed wistfully, her thoughts drifting off into fantasy. Maybe one day that could happen to her. Maybe one day she'd grow up and leave this place, become rich and fabulous, a real-life princess...

"Julieeee..."

Once again her sister interrupted her musings. Couldn't Cindy understand that she was in no mood to be spoken to? That all she wanted right now was to be left alone? Julie glanced over to where her younger sister was staring at her, eagerly awaiting her response. Then again, maybe she didn't understand. After all, Cindy was only six. Julie was eight, she was a _big_ girl, she already knew everything there was to know.

"Wha-at?" Julie asked exasperatedly, her head tiredly rolling to the side.

"I'm bored."

"Too bad."

With that, she forced herself to get up once more to make the television louder. Cinderella was now off to the ball in her carriage. Julie tried to block out the distractions, and focus on what was happening on the small screen in front of her. It wasn't often she had the chance to watch tv; there was only one in her house. _Plus_, something she liked was actually on: another rarity. Usually the programs watched in their household were limited to football games watched by her father or soap operas for her mother. This was one of few opportunities for her to enjoy herself; it wasn't fair for her sister's whining or her parents' bickering to ruin it.

Once again, sitting back on the tattered couch, Julie stared straight ahead. Cinderella was now swaying across the dance floor in her beautiful gown, Prince Charming's arms locked around her. It was amazing, Julie thought, how she had been able to rise above her circumstances. She'd ignored her misfortunes and seize the opportunity to change from what she was into something more. Another dreamy sigh escaped Julie's lips. If only...

"Damnit, would you just calm down already!"

"Calm down? Calm down! Explain to me how I'm supposed to _calm down_ when you go out and gamble your pay checks away. Cindy doesn't have _shoes_, Mike."

"I bust my ass every day at that job to put a roof over your head. What do you do, Lynn, huh? Nothing!"

Julie winced as the sound of her parents' arguments became increasingly louder, echoing from their bedroom throughout the entire house. She looked over to see Cindy tugging on her shirt, an array of whiny phrases coming out of her mouth. The small fan that had been providing her with the slightest bit of coolness suddenly stopped moving and she realized just how stifling the heat actually was, it seemed to surround and choke her, making it nearly impossible to breathe correctly.

Julie turned all her will-power and determination into concentrating on Cinderella; heavily depending on this one small pleasure to overcome the screaming voices and smothering hotness around her.

And just when things couldn't get any worse, Walt Disney's masterpiece transformed into a disorder of gray television static.

That did it.

Julie stood up, causing Cindy, who was still hanging onto her, to tumble to the floor. A furious hand switched off the tv, which had let out a slew of malfunctioning noises as its screen turned to snow. She downed the rest of her lemonade, smacking the glass down on the rocky wooden table it had been sitting on, and stormed out the front door, angrily slamming it shut before she had to hear her family for any longer.

Stepping outside was a sense of relief. The lack of ventilation and stuffiness of inside her home had intensified the afternoon's heat. It actually felt tad cooler outside and while it was still scorching, the atmosphere was a bit more bearable.

Julie hopped off the front step of her house and walked onto the driveway, blue eyes squinting involuntarily from the blaring sun. Through the bright haze she glanced around her, taking in every inch of her surroundings.

Her gaze swept across the street as she observed everything that made Riverside so, well, Riverside. The beat-up cars in driveways, the small ramshackle houses, the graffiti littering mailboxes and other public property, the furniture cast out on front lawns: all constant, continuous reminders of who she was and where she was from.

No matter how hard she tried she could never escape reality; it was everywhere, all the time.

Julie sighed heavily, wiping the sweat off the back of her neck and blowing wispy light-brown bangs out of her face. She frowned, brow furrowing in deep thought, as she attempted to come up with an idea to make the time pass.

Summers in Riverside were like somewhat of a jail sentence. Days were extremely long and extremely boring with barley anything to do. Julie found herself often counting the hours until she could go to sleep at night, only to wake up the next day and repeat the same cycle. It was as if she was constantly waiting for time to pass, going through life in hope that it would go by quicker, always waiting for that moment when she would become something more, leave this all behind and start again.

She spotted a barrel of assorted colored chalk sitting a few feet away, evidence left over from when she and Cindy had spend the whole afternoon turning their driveway into a work of art, flowers and hearts and rainbows that all eventually faded as a result of occasional rain and inevitable time. She bent down and picked up a thick pink piece, crouching down on her knees as a decision was made.

Julie wondered if Cinderella had dreamed of having more too. If she had fantasized and conjured up another existence in her mind while she was on her knees, scrubbing floors. Had she known that one day her fate would be changed? That she would go from servant to princess? Rags to riches? Nothing to everything?

Pink lines were drawn onto the blacktop, eventually turning into ten separate squares, all fixed in a pattern in which they alternated in rows of one to two squares. Numbers were then placed in the middle of each shape, starting at one and ending at ten.

Julie stood up and placed her hands on her hips, studying her tilted, somewhat crooked and uneven lines. This would have to do for the time being. She only needed a few hours to occupy herself and then she could go inside for dinner and bedtime would be there before she knew it.

Besides, there was nothing like a game of hopscotch by yourself on a hot, boring, summer afternoon.

Her eyes fell onto her family's overgrown, yellow-looking lawn. She scanned the area and quickly spotted what she considered to be a good-sized pebble. She bent down and fished it out of the grass, holding it tightly in her small hand.

She lightly tossed the rock onto the first square. On her right foot, she hopped into the area, balancing for only a moment before jumping back onto both feet, one foot in the '2' square and the other in the '3'. She paused for a second to prepare herself, something she would not have been allowed to do had she been playing in the company of others. But no one was here to boss her around and besides, it wasn't as if Julie listened to anyone other than herself anyway. She made her own rules.

She swung her arms to gain momentum and hopped on her left foot. She was landing in box '4' when suddenly the strap on her left sandal gave out and she lost her balance in the process.

Julie stepped off the bored, frustrated, and bent down to inspect the damage. Her sandal was now hanging off her foot, a clean tear in the band that had been holding it in place. Her mother was just going to love this.

She kicked off the now useless shoe and undid the strap on the still-wearable right one. She stood on her tippy-toes for a moment, trying to get used to the heat of the pavement beneath her bare feet. Bouncing up and down slightly, she forced herself to adjust and ignore the hotness of the surface; it would be a helpful tool in making her jump faster.

Regathering the pebble from the board, she dropped it again in the first square and began to hop.

One day she'd turn out like Cinderella. She'd find her own Prince Charming and live in her own castle. She'd wear beautiful clothes and glitter in diamonds and money would never be a concern or even a thought in her mind. She'd sit in her elegant dining room and have people cook and clean for her while she sat back and enjoyed her life of luxury and extravagance.

Julie paused in the '5' and '6' boxes and switched back to one-foot hopping, landing successful in the '7' square.

One day she'd have a little girl of her own and she'd be pretty and perfect like everything else in Julie's new life. She'd have a television in her room and a pony as her pet. She'd sleep soundly at night in her king-sized bed, stomach never grumbling because she'd never feel the ache of going to bed without dinner. Her daughter would walk around in expensive shoes that would never rip or tear. And even if they did it wouldn't matter because she'd have a closet full of other ones to wear.

Julie felt a wave of triumph as she reached the tenth square. She carefully tried to hop back around without stepping out of the boundary, but she was distracted by the sound of an engine roaring from down the street. Her foot slid beyond the border and she huffed in frustration. It was a stupid game anyway. She focused her attention on the car that was rounding the corner and took a couple of steps back to further herself from the sidewalk. Drivers cruising through Riverside loved to bump up over the curb, whether they were drunk or just plain stupid.

Julie's eyes squinted as she made out the shape of the vehicle coming down her street at a reasonable speed. She froze in her spot with astonishment as she processed the figure of the black limousine in the distance.

She had seen about five limousines in her lifetime. They were hardly the norm around here and it wasn't like she got out of Riverside very often. She stared in wonder and amazement as the limousine came closer, eventually coming to a halt in front of her house and waiting at the stop sign. For the first time Julie relished in the fact that she lived on a corner.

The dark glass prevented her from peering inside. She didn't blame whoever was in there for not wanting to be seen. Had the situation been reversed she wouldn't have wanted the rest of the world getting a glimpse of her life, specifically reserved only for an elite few.

Julie realized for the first time that while she could not see the person in there, they could see everything on the outside. She glanced back at her own tiny house, with its paint chipping and loose shingles hanging off of it. She felt mildly embarrassed that all of her short-comings were on display for whoever the fortunate stranger was.

The limousine remained stopped at the corner, waiting for the traffic to clear. Julie kept her gaze focused, her own fabrications about the person or people inside unraveling inside her brain.

She wondered if they had always been so lucky. If they had been born into this life of glamour and extravagance. Never needing, never wanting, because they always had it all.

Or had it been another Cinderella story. She wondered if they built themselves up from nothing to get to where they were. If they woken up one day to see their stars realigned; that fate had taken a turn and decided to give them everything they'd ever wanted. Had they also spent summers playing hopscotch in front of their broken down house, wishing and fantasizing for something else, something more?

The road cleared and the limousine started up again, beginning to zoom away, leaving Julie standing there, her questions still unanswered.

She sighed wistfully. Maybe she'd never know. Maybe the only way you knew the truth was if you lived through it yourself. Maybe one day fate would decide to change her own stars. And she'd be the one behind the obscuring glass.

She tried to penetrate her gaze one last time, eyes hard and focused in concentration as the limousine passed her corner, driving through intersection, continuing its journey back to whatever magical place it had come from.

It was no use. She could look forever and nothing would be given away. And she had no choice but to watch as the black figure disappeared from her view beyond the horizon. All was hidden, masked behind a border of mystery, the divider that separated her from ever seeing another world.

All she had wanted was a glimpse, some small piece of memory that she could store in her brain and think back on forever.

But no matter how hard she stared she would never be able to peek her way in. Instead she was left there, blue eyes desperately boring an invisible hole.

Through the tinted window.

---------------

"I want to go homeee!"

A series of crying and whining was let out, along with pounding fists and all other components that came with a typical temper tantrum. Hailey screamed and kicked her tiny feet against the leather interior, a desperate attempt for attention and recognition, her legs not yet long enough to stomp on the floor.

Kirsten rolled her eyes and covered her hands with her ears, silently praying that the driver would step on the gas and get them back to Newport before she had to endure another minute of this.

"Hailey, stop it. We'll be home in less than an hour, you're four years old, you're not a baby anymore."

Elizabeth Nichol finished scolding her younger daughter, whose wailing sobs quieted into a wave of quivering sniffles. She sighed in exasperation and moved a strand of long amber hair behind a diamond-studded ear. She glanced down at the platinum watch decorating her left wrist and shook her head in dismay as she saw the time.

"I'm going to kill that father of yours," she muttered to her older daughter without looking up. "He knows I'm throwing a party tonight, the caterers are already there, there's going to be a hundred people at the house in less than two hours, and what does he do? He sends the limo to pick us up an hour late." She groaned in frustration, reaching under the bar beneath the window, pulling out an empty glass and a bottle of Merlot.

Her complaints went unrecognized and unheard by Kirsten. She was too busy watching as her mother uncorked and poured the wine, downing the burgundy-colored liquid in one gulp.

Kirsten sighed, shaking her head sadly to herself and turning away from the scene in front of her. She had learned about alcoholism this past year in middle school during health class; the causes, the risks, the signs. All of it had made a part of her mother that she had never quite understood so brutally and painfully clear.

"Mommy..."

"What, Hailey?"

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"Well, you'll just have to wait a little while longer."

"But I have to go nowww!"

With that another fit of tears began and Hailey sat there squirming and weeping in her new lilac dress, a chocolate ice-cream stain already dripped down the middle.

Kirsten shifted closer to the door in her seat, letting her head rest up against the dark glass as she tried to get as far away as possible from her screaming sister and drinking mother.

She pressed her nose up against the window, her breath clouding and smudging the surface as she watched Riverside pass her by. There had been a huge accident, blocking off traffic on the 91 for hours. The driver had decided that it would be quicker to drive through the town itself and then get back on the highway when they had passed all of the commotion.

Whenever she went out of Orange County she was always surprised by the stark contrast of other places as compared to her hometown. She wasn't completely ignorant. As she grew older she was well-accustomed to the expression that Newport Beach was indeed "a bubble" and that the rest of the world wasn't as picturesque and wealthy as the area she just happened to have been born in. However, driving through towns that weren't necessarily poor, but just average and not insanely rich, never failed to make Kirsten feel like she was the strange one. She didn't look down at other communities in disdain, but instead she felt like a fraud, a freak living in a place where almost every house had a maid and a cook and shopping centers had valet parking and $200 bottles of wine were bought during lunch at the Crab Shack.

Life in Newport was hardly the norm. Everywhere else she came across seemed to live a much simpler existence. Appearances weren't the top priority and not everything had to be dressed up so it looked pretty. Things were what they were, and that was it. People didn't waste their time covering up flaws to make it all seem perfect. After all, nothing really was perfect. And there was no point going to such extreme, unnecessary measures to try to hide from the truth.

They passed by some public building, a side wall spray painted with various forms of graffiti. Kirsten stared at it in wonder, as if she was viewing some great work of art. They drove off a main road and into a residential area, small houses spaced close together lining the street. She spotted a father in his driveway with his young son, a hose in his hand and a bucket of soapy water and sponges next to him and they both attempted to wash the dirtied station wagon, laughter and happiness radiating from each of their faces. Kirsten felt a twinge of sadness. She had never done anything like that before.

In fact, now that she thought about it, there were plenty of normal occurrences that she had never experienced. She had never gone to public school or rode on a bus. She had never cleaned her own room or done her own laundry or cooked her own dinner. Such easy, common tasks were too tedious for the rich and the fabulous. And while Kirsten had been born and raised in Newport all her life, she still couldn't understand why people with such money and success found it impossible to do anything themselves.

The sound of clanking glass attracted her attention and Kirsten looked to see her mother rummaging through the bottles in the mini-bar, obviously looking for something stronger since the wine just wasn't doing enough.

Elizabeth looked up for a minute and caught her eldest daughter's piercing gaze, becoming flustered momentarily. "Um, are you girls thirsty?" she asked, trying to shield the embarrassment Kirsten's attention had suddenly brought her. "There's soda, juice..." She sheepishly pulled out a can of diet coke and a container of cranberry juice, releasing her previous grip on the vodka bottle that she had picked up before.

Hailey reached out her tiny hands and her mother unscrewed the top and handed the cranberry juice to her. Hailey took a huge sip, holding it in her mouth and then hiccupping loudly, allowing the red liquid to join the chocolate ice cream as another stain on the dress that had been clean and new mere hours ago.

"Hailey," her mother sighed, disappointment instead of discipline in her tone this time. Hailey started to cry again and Kirsten watched as her mother made no attempt to clean the little girl up; deciding instead to retrieve the bottle of vodka and dump it into her glass without a mixer. Elizabeth took a calming sip, refusing to meet her older daughter's eyes. Kirsten looked away.

She leaned back against the window as they drove further down the street. She watched, with careful attention to detail, the typical day-to-day happenings in a typical Riverside community. A dog was being walked, a woman planted tomatoes in a garden, children ran around in a sprinkler in the front yard. All of their actions seemed so simplistic, so void of corruption and complication.

So... _normal_.

The driver neared the corner and Kirsten spotted a young girl, no more than eight or nine, mousy brown hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, barefoot in a white tank top and ripped jean shorts, balancing on one foot in her driveway as she jumped across a hopscotch board scrawled from chalk.

Kirsten had spent the past fourteen years enrolled in every class or activity imaginable from dance to tennis to gymnastics to piano. Her mother had invested hundreds of dollars trying to find some sort of hobby for her daughter to busy herself with.

And here was this girl, alone in her yard on a hot summer afternoon, entertaining herself just fine with a pebble and her own two feet.

The limousine halted to a stop at a corner, waiting by the stop sign for several cars to pass. She continued to watch the girl with a sense of awe and longing washing over her. Kirsten had been taught all her life the importance that money and prestige brought. Wealth brought power which in turn brought more wealth. Without it you were nothing.

There were days where Kirsten wished she could be nothing.

At least then she had nothing to live up to. At least then she wouldn't have to work up to ridiculous expectations, only to feel the crushing disappointment when she couldn't reach her goals. At least then she wouldn't have to parade around with a fake smile on her face, glancing around at everyone else around her, constantly wondering if she was the only one who felt like you completely didn't fit at all. At least then she could be herself.

Whoever the hell that was.

She continued to watch the girl, observing her every action, every hop, every jump, every stumble. She had been so engrossed in observation that it had taken Kirsten a minute to realize that the girl had stopped playing her game, and was now standing in the driveway, staring directly at her.

Their gazes met. And Kirsten noticed how her expression was one of sheer amazement and wonder. This girl was probably looking at her in envy, only hoping that one day she would be as glamorous and lucky.

She didn't know the half of it.

Kirsten raised her hand starting to initiate a wave but she soon ceased her actions, fingertips sliding down the glass in front of her. She had forgotten that the girl couldn't see her. She was out there and Kirsten was stuck in here, shielded in her own private world. Only a selected few were allowed to get a peek in; and after they did, most of them wound up wishing they had never looked in the first place.

In truth, it was better to be on the outside. At least there everything was real.

The limousine began to roll again and she watched as the figure of the girl became smaller, as Kirsten drifted farther away, back to her life.

But still she looked behind as they drove, letting her gaze linger as long as possible, continuing to meet the blue eyes staring back at her.

Through the tinted window.

fin.

--

_A/N: Well, how was that? I hope I characterized Julie and Kirsten okay, even though I think I made Julie sound kind of old for her age, but I tried to create her wishes for a better future in a more childish way than Kirsten's wish for normalcy._

_For those of you wondering how I got the ages, let me explain. As we all know the writers kind of suck when it comes to continuity with ages, hence the examples listed below:_

_i.e.) Sandy and Kirsten are married 17 years in season 1 and in season 2 its suddenly their 20th anniversery, _

_i.e.) Julie was pregnant with Marissa in 1986 and yet she's only 17-18 in season 3, 2006._

_i.e. The Fab 4 seem to have repeated junior year twice, and they were already 16 the summer after their freshman year. (I know this isn't really the writers fault because when the show first aired they had them as juniors in S1 and then set them back a year to make more time in high school.) _

_i.e. Hailey is only 25 according to Jimmy and yet she was 8 when he left for college which would mean that Jimmy is only 35 and he had Marissa when he was 18 which we know is untrue._

_i.e. Rachel (from season 1) is 33 and graduated from Berkley 4 years after Kirsten, making Kirsten only 37 in season 1 and therefore, 21 when she had Seth. (impossible because she met Sandy at 22)_

_i.e. Kaitlin is turning 15 in seson 3, making her 3 years younger than Marissa. In season 1 she was 10 and yet somehow she aged 5 years in the past 2 years. (Don't even get me started with the whole Kaitlin age factor...)_

_So here is how I kind of attempted to figure out just how old the characters really are..._

_Okay, so Sandy and Kirsten met when they were 22 and its assumed they were married when they were 22 also. In season 2 they celebrated their 20 year anniversery, in season 2 Seth was a junior so he was 17 (or turning 17). This means Seth was born when Sandy and Kirsten were 25. Seth is now a senior so he was born in 1988. Sandy and Kirsten were therefore born in 1963 making them 43 years old respectively._

_Julie gave birth to Marissa when she was 18. Jimmy and Kirsten are the same age. Seth and Marissa are the same age. Therefore, Marissa was born (1988) when Jimmy was around 25 and Julie was 18 (probably turning 19). If Jimmy met Julie when she was 18, he was probably about 24, making him (and Kirsten) about 6 years older than Julie. Julie therefore is born in 1969 and is now 37 years old in season 3._

_Disregaurding Jimmy's comment in 2:07 about Hailey being 25 (which is impossible). He also stated in season 1 that Hailey was 8 when he went away to college at the age of 18. This makes Jimmy (and Kirsten) 10 years older than Hailey. Hailey is born in 1973._

_So, yeah, 1977: Julie is 8, Kirsten is 14, Hailey is 4. _

_Anyway, please review!_


End file.
